by Joe Garcia III
Staff Writer
The University of La Verne Debate Team has enjoyed success during the past few years, achieving international ranking alongside top Australian college teams.
And this year should be no exception.
Last month, the ULV team headed to Europe to attend the Oxford and Cambridge Invitational International Debate Championships.
Two ULV debate teams competed in the championships. Team A included team, captain Andrew Kim and Beverly Samano and Team B consisted of Jessica Lord and Nathan Baca.
In the Oxford tournament of 84 teams, team B placed 28th and team A placed 29th. In the Cambridge tournament, team A placed 18th out of 67 teams, beating out the neighboring Claremont Colleges and making ULV team A the top ranked American debate team.
“This is a good way of measuring how good we will be for the World Championship,” said Ian Lising, director of forensics and debate team coach for the past two years.
The World Championship will be held in Toronto at the end of December.
This year is significant for the team because many of the debaters ULV is sending have never debated internationally.
“Some of the debating topics at the tournaments ranged from euthanasia, legalization of prostitution, to the legalization of marijuana” said Kim, the team captain.
“ULV is well known at Cambridge and Oxford. They expect a certain quality from the ULV debate team,” he said.
The ULV debate team is looking forward to competing and members say they feel confident going into the World Championships.
Kim and his teammates have tested the waters, attending the European debate tournaments and will use this experience to the best of their ability in Toronto for the Worlds Championship, they say.
